After quitting baseball 5 years ago, Raquet realizes big league dreams in debut 

SEATTLE -- On his first day in the Major Leagues, Nick Raquet couldn’t help but think of the day when he decided to give up the game he loves.

It was late 2019, an eventful time of year for a soon-to-be-24-year-old left-handed pitcher in the Washington Nationals organization who hadn’t advanced past Single-A.

While the big league Nationals were celebrating their first World Series championship in franchise history, Raquet was wondering what to do with his life after being knocked around to an 8.49 ERA for the Surprise Saguaros of the Arizona Fall League.

“I was done,” said Raquet, now 29. “Like, fully done.”

It was hard to imagine Raquet coming to that crushing conclusion on Monday, as he stood by his locker in the visiting clubhouse of T-Mobile Park, his perfect, never-worn St. Louis Cardinals jersey hanging behind him with the number 70.

Or four hours later, when he strode atop the mound in the bottom of the seventh inning of the Cardinals’ 4-2 loss to the Mariners and pumped a 91 mph sinker past J.P. Crawford for a strike on his first big league pitch.

Raquet got through a 1-2-3 inning (flyout, lineout, groundout) on eight pitches, seven of which were strikes. It was a quick and efficient tuneup in an otherwise disappointing result for the Cardinals, who lost a two-run lead when Seattle scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning against St. Louis starter Miles Mikolas and reliever Gordon Graceffo.

That took some shine off of the resounding return of first baseman Alec Burleson, who hit a two-run homer in his first game back from the 10-day Injured List.

Otherwise, it was a perfect night for a debut.

Raquet’s parents and his girlfriend, Maggie, had made it to Seattle following the most joyous of mad family scrambles that ensued once Raquet had returned the five Sunday phone calls from Triple-A Memphis manager Ben Johnson that he missed while he and Maggie were on a walk.

Before the game, as his wide eyes showed, he was not feeling much of anything at all.

“I’m pretty numb,” he said.

Who wouldn’t be after realizing a lifelong dream not even five years after quitting baseball altogether? It was during the COVID-19 lockdown and aftermath in 2020 that Raquet decided to parlay his finance degree from the College of William & Mary into a new career as an enterprise risk consultant for “Big Four” accounting behemoth Ernst & Young.

He worked remotely and navigated the corporate waters while the world adjusted to the pandemic. He didn’t think about baseball much. He might not have fully come to the realization that he had become miserable, but Maggie did.

“One day, she said, ‘I’m sick of hearing you complain about your job,’” Raquet said. “She said, ‘I need you to go do something that you’re going to be happier doing, feeling more fulfilled.’”

Soon after that, Raquet found himself at a local youth baseball facility, first as a coach and batting practice pitcher for kids, then throwing bullpens for himself.

“It kind of was like, ‘Man, this doesn’t feel too bad,’” Raquet said. “It’s feeling good. Then I started to feel a little stronger, and then the passion was back.”

Raquet took a job with the York (Pa.) Revolution of the independent Atlantic League and found himself not caring about the high-school-level diamonds and one-meal per diem.

Raquet’s year in York was marked by one especially bizarre episode: “We had a clubhouse manager who said he’d been with the Braves and knew guys like Matt Olson,” Raquet said. “We came to find out two months into the season that he was not who he said he was and that he had stolen equipment from the team and took off.”

Cardinals reliever Chris Roycroft was standing two lockers away from Raquet in Seattle and had to smile at that yarn.

Roycroft, after all, had lived the independent-ball life himself, spending parts of two seasons in Joliet, Ill., before sticking with the Cardinals in 2024 at the age of 27.

“The fields were weird, the food was bad, and we even had players sleeping in the broadcast booth,” Roycroft said.

“There’s a lot of time to have doubts. A lot of time to wonder why you’re doing what you’re doing. And a lot of days when you don’t pitch well and you’re wondering, ‘Is this it?’ So I know that it takes a lot of dedication.

“And I know that anyone who goes through that is a grinder.”

Now there are two of those grinders on the Major League roster, and the Cardinals are eager to see what Raquet might bring to the relief corps.

In 36 games this season between Memphis and Double-A Springfield, the southpaw posted a 10-4 record with a 1.68 ERA, eight saves, and a 1.06 WHIP. He struck out 57 batters over 48 1/3 innings.

“He's been having a good season down there, and we wanted to give him an opportunity to see what it looks like up here for him as we go down the stretch,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said.

“Not your typical road to the big leagues, so he's earned it.”

Looking back, Raquet said the independent leagues didn’t end up being only a last chance -- they were a place to rediscover his love for the game.

“I got the drive back,” he said. “Being around baseball, kind of in its purest form, I had lost that a little bit.

“And being away from it showed me that I still loved it.”

On Monday, maybe his crisp outing earned him a little bit more. Maybe not.

But either way, Raquet seemed content with where he currently belongs.

“It's an opportunity I've been working for, dreaming about, for a really long time,” Raquet said.

“So just go out and enjoy it. You've done the work, you've prepared, you've looked over the scouting reports … you've warmed up. Now just pitch and have fun.”